Jeffrey L. WilsonSamsung Milk Music (for Samsung Galaxy Phones)The Slacker Radio-powered Milk Music brings a deep library and solid audio quality to Samsung Galaxy smartphones, but a few omissions keep it from being the top Android streaming music app.

No premium account for streaming tracks on demand or ditching skip limitations. No lyrics, bios, or playlist creation.

Bottom Line

The Slacker Radio-powered Milk Music brings a deep library and solid audio quality to Samsung Galaxy smartphones, but a few omissions keep it from being the top Android streaming music app.

Does the mobile space need yet another streaming music service? Samsung believes it does, evidently, with the company's recent release of Milk Music. This free, ad-free service delivers more than 13 million songs and comedy tracks spread across 200+ stations, but it's relegated (at least for now) to Samsung Galaxy phones. That's not a misprint. Milk Music isn't a general Android app; it's exclusive to Samsung Galaxy S 4, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note 3, and Galaxy Note II smartphones (it will also appear on the Galaxy S 5 when that handset is released in April). However, music fans shouldn't conflate Milk Music's exclusivity with excellence. Although Milk Music is a respectable Android streaming service, many omissions keep it from competing with Spotify or our Editors' Choice award winner, Slacker Radio.

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Putting Needle to GrooveThe fact that Milk can't match Slacker is all the more frustrating given that its back end is powered by Slacker. You couldn't discern the relationship by looking at the app—nor by looking at the feature sets, sadly. You'll primarily explore Milk Music's catalog using the Music Dial, a navigation system that lets you scroll through the nine default genres and their sub-genres—think of it as the touch version of Apple's old iPod click wheel. You can use large swipes to quickly jump among genres (for example, moving between Rock and Hip Hop), or smaller swipes to explore sub-genres (like '60s Rock or Party Metal). You can swap out the default stations for other prefab stations or your own custom creations.

Using Music Dial proved an exercise in frustration—at least initially—as the virtual wheel requires a very fine touch to prevent overshooting the station that you'd like to stream. Getting accustomed to its sensitivity took me a few minutes. A drop-down box located above the Music Dial lets you navigate to any of Milk Music's stations, but there's no way to search for songs or albums and listen to them on demand (as you can with Slacker Radio).

Just as with Pandora, Milk Music lets you create new stations from scratch. Keying in an artist name or song title builds a custom station around your search query. For example, my "Blurred Lines" station used Robin Thicke's 2013 smash hit to build an R&B station featuring Thicke, Floetry, John Legend, Kenny Lattimore, and other related artists. As with Milk Music's default stations, the custom stations have sliders that let you adjust how often new, popular, and favorited songs play. It's nice to see some of Slacker Radio's flexibility on display. You cannot create playlists, however.

The Milk Music ExperienceMilk Music streamed crisp, hiccup-free audio over my home and office network connections. Unless you're an audiophile who relishes lossless tunes, Milk Music's sound quality will satisfy. I enjoyed full baselines and good separation of high and low sounds while listening to The Dirtbombs' "Ultraglide in Black" album. You can opt to stream audio at the Standard (40 kbps) or High (96 kbps) quality settings, depending on whether you want to conserve bandwidth or fill out the soundscape, respectively.

Milk Music allows users to skip just six songs per hour, per channel—the industry standard for non-premium accounts. Unfortunately, you're out of luck if you dig Milk Music and want to plunk down cash to ditch the skip limitations. There's currently no premium plan in place, but I wouldn't be shocked if one eventually appeared. Slacker Radio, after all, has both free and premium tiers. Note: If you want to listen to songs with explicit lyrics, you need to sign into your Samsung account to verify that you're at least 18 years old.

Unfortunately, Milk Music lacks lyrics, artist bios, and reviews, so the music learning is kept to a minimum. That said, Milk Music is great at feeding related songs into your channels, so the music discovery is firmly in place.

Taking a Sip of Milk The Slacker Radio-powered Milk Music isn't the game changer that some might expect of an app exclusive to Samsung's flagship mobile line, but it isn't a bum either. Milk Music offers a low cost of entry (free!) and a deep library. Milk Music doesn't dethrone Slacker Radio as the PCMag.com Editors' Choice award-winner among Android streaming music apps, but it's one that Samsung mobile-owners should definitely sample, even if only to enjoy the exclusivity.

Samsung Milk Music (for Samsung Galaxy Phones)

Bottom Line: The Slacker Radio-powered Milk Music brings a deep library and solid audio quality to Samsung Galaxy smartphones, but a few omissions keep it from being the top Android streaming music app.

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About the Author

For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.
When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out web... See Full Bio

Samsung Milk Music (for Samsung...

Samsung Milk Music (for Samsung Galaxy Phones)

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